[Sca-cooks] [SCA-AS] Medieval/Renaissance Cookies and small sweets (fwd)

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

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"I desire nothing more earnestly than that my work be a stepping-block
which others may mount to glimpse a farther horizon."

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Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:01:16 -0500
From: Lis <liontamr at ptd.net>
To: Alastar <smorrisson at nauticom.net>, Briant <ladybriant at comcast.net>,
     Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>,
     sca-aethelmearc at andrew.cmu.edu, kathy said <sobheya at msn.com>,
     joe chiffriller <chiffj at urbancom.net>, Gilbert <wildcat2 at ptd.net>,
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     SCA_kingdom_childrens_officers at yahoogroups.com, Meghan <lionus at ptd.net>,
     Coco <double07 at ptd.net>, Kerri Kessler <kesslerk at us.ibm.com>,
     ArtsSciences list <artssciences at lists.gallowglass.org>,
     Siusan <blondq at ptd.net>, EK South <EKsouth at yahoogroups.com>,
     "thamesreach at yahoogroups.com"@fiedlerfamily.net
Subject: [SCA-AS] Medieval/Renaissance Cookies and small sweets

Greetings everyone! This week's Links List is about Medieval Cookies,
Biskets, Wafers, Fritters, and other small sweets as we enter into the
season of furious baking for the holidays! It occurred to me that folks
might want to share their "medievalness" with others this season as they go
to various gatherings both with their families and their "historical"
friends. It so happened that I shared a batch of medieval gingerbread at a
medieval studies night last week, and ended up sharing the recipe as well,
to someone who wanted to take it to another gathering. So, for your
gustatory and celebratory pleasure,  here's a resource for good
old-fashioned cookies and sweets, the likes of which Grandma never saw!

As always, please feel free to pass this Links List message along wherever
it will find an interested reader (whole, please, not in parts), and use it
to update your own WebPages or lists if you like. I am NOT forwarding it
especially to historic cooking lists, and so please feel free to do so if
you think it will be well received. As always, I cannot  possibly read all
the lists in which THIS Links List appears---we appear to be shooting 'round
the Known World several times a month---so if you want to direct a question
or comment to me, please email me directly at liontamr at ptd.net rather than
to the list upon which THIS list appears. Thanks! And please remember that I
am always interested in hearing suggestions for future Links List topics and
am looking for guest "Linkers."

Cheers!

Aoife

Dame Aoife Finn of Ynos Mon
Riverouge
Aethelmearc


"Everything Imaginable Made of Sugar"
Translation of the third course of
The first banquet for Emperors for the early meal on a meat day, and
re-creation of a selection of said third course from
Ein New Kochbuch by Marxen Rumpolt
By Gwen Catrin von Berlin
http://clem.mscd.edu/~grasse/GK_ASQPsugar98.htm
(Site Excerpt) The sugar plate or sugar paste I used to create the small
items (28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 47, 49, 51, 57, 59, 60, 63, 68, 69, 74,
etc.,) is listed in several sources including A Taste of History - 10,000
years of Food in Britain which lists a recipe from A good housewife Jewel by
Thomas Dawson; and.in Delights for Ladies. There are two recipes: #10 "A
most delicate and stiff sugar paste, whereof to cast Rabbets, Pigeons, or
any other little bird or beast, eyther from the life or carved mould;" and
#13 "The making of sugar-paste, and casting thereof into carved moulds.."
Unfortunately, recipe # 13 and the recipe in A Taste of History include raw
egg white, and modern science has alerted us to the dangers of salmonella,
so I chose to substitute meringue powder as a safer alternative. I have no
indication as to whether the original third course had the items in
real-life size or in a small scale. I chose to use small scale (about 1'=1")
to provide bite sized items for folk to taste (often one is reluctant to
cut, break or damage an item for a taste, so a single-bite sized sample is
preferable).

To Make a Marchpane: By Lady Rosemary Willowwood de Ste. Anne
http://www.open.org/~tpomaria/A&S_cooking_marchpane.htm
(Site Excerpt) To make a Marchpane
from Delightes for Ladies, . . . with Beauties. Banquets. Perfumes and
Waters
By Sir Hugh Plat, publ. London, 1609
Take two pounds of Almonds being blanched and dryed in a sieue over the
fire: beat them in a stone mortar; and when they bee small, mix with them
two pounds of sugar being finely beaten, adding 2 or 3 spoonfuls of
Rose-water, and that will keeps (sic)  your Almonds from oyling.  When your
paste is beaten fine, drive it thin with a rowling pin, and so lay it on a
bottom of wafers: then raise up a little edge on one side, and so bake it:
then yce it with Rose-water and sugar: then put it into the ouen again;
....(Modern recipe follows)

Goode Cookys from Goode Cookery (Commercial site--proceeds help support the
site)
http://www.godecookery.com/cookies/cookies.html
(Site Excerpt) During the Middle Ages & Renaissance, small cakes or wafers,
such as Lebkuchen from Nuremberg & Shrewsbery Cakes from England, were the
predecessors of our modern cookie. Many of these cakes were created in a
variety of shapes, sizes, & designs, produced by hand-carved molds that
depicted images of saints, elements of daily life, & period patterns &
motifs.

Stefan's Florilegium: Medieval Gingerbread Messages
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-SWEETS/gingerbread-msg.html
(Site Message Excerpt) To make gingerbrede. Take goode honey & clarifie it
on the fere, & take
fayre paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it, & caste it into the boylenge
hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse that it bren not to the
vessell. & thanne take it doun and put therin ginger, longe pepper &
saundres, & tempere it vp with thin handes; & than put hem to a flatt
boyste & strawe theron suger, & pick therin clowes rounde aboute by the
egge and in the mydes, yf it plece you, &c.

Florilegium's cookies files (click sweet or decorated foods on left, then
click cookies-msg on the right)
http://www.florilegium.org/
(Site Message Excerpt, from one of my own postings to SCA-cooks) From
Huswife's Jewel, 1596   pg. 17
To make Fine Cakes.Take fine flowre and good Damaske water you must have no
other liqeur but
that, then take sweet butter, two or three yolkes of eggs and a good
quantity of Suger, and a few cloves, and mace, as your Cookes mouth shall
serve him, and a lyttle saffron, and a little Gods good about a spoonful if
you put in too much they shall arise, cutte them in squares lyke unto
trenchers, and pricke them well, and let your oven be well swept and lay
them uppon papers and so set them into the oven. Do not burne them if they
be three or foure days olde they bee the better.

David Friedman's (Duke Sir Cariadoc's) Sabria Welserin cookies, small
sweets, and cookie-like recipes:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html
See recipes number 22, 51, 88, 95, 99, 102, 140, 144, 146, 151, 160, 161,
162, 163, 164, 180, 199.

Manual de mugeres (Spanish manuscript entitled "Manual of Women")
Hard tack Biscuits:
http://www.geocities.com/karen_larsdatter/manual.htm#bizcocho
Fritters: http://www.geocities.com/karen_larsdatter/manual.htm#bunuelos
Quince Turnovers and Almond Sweetmeats:
http://www.geocities.com/karen_larsdatter/manual.htm#mem2
Royal Paste:
http://www.geocities.com/karen_larsdatter/manual.htm#pasta%20real

Markham's The English Housewife
See the Banqueting and Made Dishes section:
http://infotrope.net/sca/texts/english-housewife/banquet.html
See highlights on the left of text for recipes for: Quince Paste, Quince
Cakes, Gingerbread, Jumballs, Bisket Bread, Cinnamon Sticks, Sugar Plate,
Spice Cakes, Banbury cakes, Marchpane, etc.

Ein Buch von Guter Spise: See # 74 Almond Cakes
http://cs-people.bu.edu/akatlas/Buch/recipes.html#recipe74

Cristoforo Messisbugo: "Fritters" with elderberry flowers, for six persons
http://www.nicomarin.com/ricette/ric320_e.htm

Hugh Plat: Apple and Beer Fritters
http://www.panix.com/~nexus/cooking/12rec.shtml
(Site Excerpt) 59. To make Leach
Seeth a pint of Creame, and in the seething put in some dissolved
Isinglasse, stirring it till it be very thicke, then take a handful of
blanched Almonds, beat them and put them in a dish with your Creame,
seasoning them with sugar, and after slice it and dish it.

Gode Cookery: Bryndons
http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec44.htm
(Site excerpt, modern recipe follows) .xlix. Bryndons. Take Wyn, & putte in
a potte, an clarifyd hony, an Saunderys, pepir, Safroun, Clowes, Maces, &
Quybibys, & mynced Datys, Pynys and Roysonys of Corauns, & a lytil Vynegre,
& sethe it on þe fyre; an sethe fygys in Wyne, & grynde hem, & draw hem þorw
a straynoure, & caste þer-to, an lete hem boyle alle to-gederys; þan take
fayre flowre, Safroun, Sugre, & Fayre Water, and make þer-of cakys, and let
hem be þinne Inow; þan kyte hem y lyke lechyngys, an caste hem in fayre
Oyle, and fry hem a lytil whyle; þanne take hem owt of þe panne, an caste
in-to a vesselle with þe Syrippe, & so serue hem forth, þe bryndonys an þe
Sirippe, in a dysshe; & let þe Sirippe be rennyng, & not to styf.

Kateryn de Devlyn: Crysps/Wafers
http://www.kateryndedevelyn.org/eng1men3.htm
(Site excerpt--modern recipe follows) Cryfpes (FC 162)
Take flo of pandemayn and medle it with white grece ou the fyr in a chawfo
and do the bato pto queynthch purgli py fyngos. or thurgh a fkymo and let it
a litul quayle a litell fo p p be hool pinne. And if p wilt colo it wip
alkenet yfondyt. take he up caft pinne fug, and sue he forth.
Also see Payn Rangoun : http://www.kateryndedevelyn.org/eng1men3.htm

Barad--from al-Baghdadi 211/13 (fried dough in honey)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/desserts.html#34
(Site Excerpt--modern recipe follows) Take best white flour, made into a
dough, and leave to rise. Put a basin on the fire, with some sesame-oil.
When boiling, take in a reticulated ladle some of the dough, and shake it
into the oil, so that as each drop of the dough falls in, it sets. As each
piece is cooked, remove with another ladle to drain off the oil. Take honey
as required, mix with rose water, and put over the fire to boil to a
consistency: then take off, and while still in the basin, whip until white.
Throw in the barad, and place out on a soft-oiled surface, pressing in the
shape of the mould. Then cut into pieces, and serve.

Waffres (Gode Cokkery, which also has many more suitable recipes for small
sweets and cookie-type things)
http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec43.htm
(Site Excerpt---modern recipe follows)  ORIGINAL RECEIPT:
.xxiiij. Waffres. Take þe Wombe of A luce, & seþe here wyl, & do it on a
morter, & tender cheese þer-to, grynde hem y-fere; þan take flowre an whyte
of Eyroun & bete to-gedere, þen take Sugre an pouder of Gyngere, & do al
to-gerderys, & loke þat þin Eyroun ben hote, & ley þer-on of þin paste, &
þan make þin waffrys, & serue yn. - Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century
Cookery-Books

House on the Hill (Replicas of Historic cookie molds, many of which are
historical to our era of study. I reccomed this source, they are terrific)
http://www.houseonthehill.net/
(Site Excerpt) Long ago and far away...For over a thousand years in faraway
Europe, presses (or molds) have been used to imprint "picture cookies" which
gratified both body and soul.The seductive appeal of the presses lies in
their singular enfolding of history, art, anthropology and celebration into
an edible form. They were used as betrothel tokens between lovers; to
celebrate nuptuals and births and daily life; to honor the renowned and the
ordinary; they were expressions of piety, tellers of tales, teachers of
religion and literacy, and were humorous or bawdy observers of the human
condition. They were editorials, recordings of war and conflict, political
hand-outs, and an appreciative noting of nature and nature's bounty. In
short, edible snapshots from our past.

 Historic Impressions-- A Retailer of historic cookie molds
Butter Stamps and Cookie Molds
http://www.historicimpressions.com/Butter.htm
(Site Excerpt) Butter molds were carved since at least the 17th century as a
decorative and identifying way to mold butter.  Beautiful and ornate
examples are abundant in the Germanic countries, especially, where wood
carving was a popular folk art.  The molds were carved originally by farmers
for their own use, sometimes including their initials and heraldic symbols,
but mainly depicting the simple pastoral world around them, farm animals,
birds and other wild creatures and flowers and fruit both realistic and
stylized.  Immigrants brought their carving arts with them and the tradition
continued in this country until the need for these molds was so great that
in the 19th century, woodenware factories began producing them with lathes
and other laborsaving tools.  Their original cost of five or ten cents a
piece has sky rocketed - antique butter molds, many times without the
cylindrical housing through which the decorative stamp was pushed, sell for
$300-$400 if the design is desirable and the piece is in good shape.

The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to
appear to be favored by the gods.  ---Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman
Warrior

Some hae meat and canna eat,
  And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
  Sae let the Lord be thankit.
------Robert Burns, Blessing Before Meat

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